The Magnetic Fields at Club Helsinki, 3/6/12

HUDSON – Cult chamber-pop band the Magnetic Fields released their new album, “Love at the Bottom of the Sea,” on Tuesday, and they celebrated by kicking off their national concert tour at Club Helsinki with an utterly delightful performance that left the crowd simply enchanted.

“Thanks for being our guinea pigs,” pianist Claudia Gonson told the audience, who couldn’t have been happier.

Led by droll singer-songwriter Stephin Merrit, who spent the evening alternating on a harmonuium and a melodica, the acoustic quintet managed to squeeze 27 songs into their 90-minute show. Which was actually rather expansive, considering that the average length of the tunes on their new album is just two minutes and 15 seconds.

But the Magnetic Fields manage to pack quite a wry punch into their pithhy little ditties, thanks in large part to Merrit’s sublime and clever way with lyrics that are chockfull of twists and turns, double entendres and evocative imagery. Broken-hearted metaphors abound in the pop music world, but rarely do you hear such unexpected lyrics as “My heart’s running ’round like a chicken with its head cut off.” Or “Love is wrapped around my heart like a boa

constrictor.”

And there were a couple of revenge songs – “Your Girlfriend’s Face” (sung by ukulele player Shirley Simms) and “My Husband’s Pied-A-Terre” (delivered deadpan by Gonson from behind the grand piano) – that might have sounded as unbearably violent as the most vicious gangster rap if the lyrics hadn’t been wrapped around such bouyant, old-school pop melodies.

Much of the heavy lifting in the musical department was delivered by acoustic guitarist John Woo (who occasionally doubled Gonson’s piano parts to magnificent effect) and cellist Sam Davol (who teamed up with Merrit’s harmonium to create an oozing backing drone). Merrit’s deep vocals – often evoking Lou Reed, Nick Cave or Bryan Ferry – often provided the low-end foundation, but without drums or bass to anchor the music, the rhythms sometimes turned ragged and wobbly. Fortunately that seemed somehow perfectly appropriate on such woozy tales as “The Horrible Party” (featuring Merrit on kazoo) and the back-to-nature hippie song “Goin’ Back to the Country.”

It was a major coup for Club Helsinki to snag the opening night of the tour, and the show was sold out a month in advance. Maybe the Magnetic Fields would like to come back to wrap up the tour there, too.

Bachelorette – the stage name of New Zealand singer-songwriter Annabel Alpers – opened the show with a hypnotic solo performance that was dripping with new wave-vintage electro-pop, from the throbbing, big-buzz backbeat of “Blanket” to the gauzy, reverb-drenched swirl of “Love Is a Drug.” She accompanied herself on a pair of laptops, the occasional shake of a maraca or the tap of a tambourine and dreamy, drifting vocals as she wove a sparkling sonic tapestry.

*

The Magnetic Fields

With Bachelorette

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday

Where: Club Helsinki, 405 Columbia St., Hudson

Musical highlights: “A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off,” “Andrew in Drag,” “The Book of Love,” “Busby Berkeley Dreams,” “Smoke and Mirrors”

Length: Magnetic Fields – 90 minutes; Bachelorette – 45 minutes

The crowd: Sold out weeks in advance

Upcoming: Next up on Club Helsinki’s diverse concert schedule are such shows as the alt-cabaret of the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus on Friday; the funk-rock of the Royal Southern Brotherhood (led by Cyril Neville and Gregg Allman’s son Devon) on Saturday; and the bruising blues of the Chris O’Leary Band on Saturday, March 17.